There were some wifi issues in the accommodation at the start of the year, but
these have now been resolved.
The students have access to UCL and learning resources in the library. The staff
organise monthly courses on critical thinking, reflective practice etc which the
students are able to attend.
Mock OSCEs have been held successfully this week. The new format ran smoothly
and the students had provided some very good feedback.
The Basildon team are confident that they will be able to run finals, even without
the availability of Room B1.
Basildon will be hosting re-take students in May 2018 and will develop a plan for the
revision course.
Owing to amendments to the curriculum elsewhere in the MBBS programme, Care
of the Older Person (COOP) and Primary Care need to become more prominent in
Year 6. Most sites already base their LTC module around COOP, but the potential to
get a higher level of GP engagement with the Preparation for Practice placements
should be explored, possibly through the use of GP trainees.
Potential opportunities for students at Basildon include GP streaming/triage in the
Emergency Department and a greater exposure to frailty and community visits
within the LTC module.
Overall, the students were very happy with their placement. zz and the CTF were
both commended for their help in running the placement. They were very happy
with the mock OSCE earlier in the week. They found it well organised and very
useful.
Medicine: Some students found 4 weeks to be too long on one ward, especially with
teams where there were few patients or few ward jobs to help with e.g. palliative
care. We discussed how to empower the students to seek opportunities on other
wards and with other teams during their placement.
Medical on call was very useful and the students felt that they should all be
encouraged to do this. They would like more information about who to contact and
how to arrange out of hours shifts. We discussed the possibility of rostered on call
shifts and to perhaps ask which doctors would like a student to assist them
overnight.
Surgery: CTC was felt to be a good placement for cardiology, however, there was
less surgical exposure. They were not sure of the purpose of the SRU week and
would again like more information to help facilitate out of hours shifts in surgery.
There were no specific comments about the amount of paperwork within the T&O
week.
LTC: Renal week was felt to be very good, with a lot of teaching.
Acute medicine: A&E placement was great. Doctors actively got the students
involved, clerking patients and carrying out procedures. Students felt that the
doctors on AMU were very stressed and busy. The ambulance day is a useful
addition and provided them with a good experience of pre-hospital care.
Accommodation: overall, the students were happy with the standard of the
accommodation. They felt that maintenance issues could take a long time to
resolve.
Teaching: Well organised overall. They commented that they had been promised an
OSCE revision teaching course, however, this had not yet happened and has now
been reorganised for a weekend. We suggested to the team that this should be
scheduled for during the week rather than at a weekend.